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Cooperation, Trust and Performance – Empirical Results from Three Countries
Author(s) -
Fink Matthias,
Kessler Alexander
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
british journal of management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.407
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1467-8551
pISSN - 1045-3172
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2009.00647.x
Subject(s) - maxim , argumentation theory , business , czech , quality (philosophy) , value (mathematics) , scale (ratio) , resource (disambiguation) , empirical research , marketing , industrial organization , computer science , political science , epistemology , law , computer network , philosophy , linguistics , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning
Reverting to the resource‐based view of strategic management and cooperation theory, we provide argumentation for the value of two critical resources to cooperating firms: cooperation experience and maxim‐based trust. The results of a large‐scale survey in three European countries (Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic) reveal an important fact: although cooperation experience contributes to business performance, the contribution of maxim‐based trust to success is significantly higher. As a result, corporate success depends not only on the quantity of cooperation experience, but also – and to an even greater extent – on the quality of cooperation with regard to the form of coordinative power established within the cooperation arrangement. Given that maxim‐based trust has been identified as a feasible coordination mechanism in cooperation relationships, it might therefore be freed from its frequent characterization as utopian and out of touch with reality.